TERTULLIAN - VI. AD NATIONES - BOOK I

CHAP. I. --THE HATRED FELT BY THE HEATHEN AGAINST THE
CHRISTIANS IS UNJUST, BECAUSE BASED ON CULPABLE IGNORANCE.

ONE proof of that ignorance of yours, which condemns(3)
whilst it excuses(4) your injustice, is at once apparent
in the fact, that all who once shared in your ignorance
and hatred (of the Christian religion), as soon as
they have come to know it, leave off their hatred when
they cease to be ignorant; nay more, they actually
themselves become what they had hated, and take to
hating what they had once been. Day after day, indeed,
you groan over the increasing number of the Christians.
Your constant cry is, that the state is beset (by us);
that Christians are in your fields, in your camps,
in your islands. You grieve over it as a calamity,
that each sex, every age--in short, every rank--is
passing over from you to us; yet you do not even after
this set your minds upon reflecting whether there be
not here some latent good. You do not allow yourselves
in suspicions which may prove too true,(5) nor do you
like ventures which may be too near the mark.(6) This
is the only instance in which human curiosity grows
torpid. You love to be ignorant of what other men rejoice
to have discovered; you would rather not know it, because
you now cherish your hatred as if you were aware that,
(with the knowledge,) your hatred would certainly come
to an end. Still,(7) if there shall be no just ground
for hatred, it will surely be found to be the best
course to cease from the past injustice. Should, however,
a cause have really existed there will be no diminution
of the hatred, which will indeed accumulate so much
the more in the consciousness of its justice; unless
it be, forsooth,(8) that you are ashamed to cast off
your faults,(9) or sorry to free yourselves from blame.(10)
I know very well with what answer you usually meet
the argument from our rapid increase.(11) That indeed
must not, you say, be hastily accounted a good thing
which converts a great number of persons, and gains
them over to its side. I am aware how the mind is apt
to take to evil courses. How many there are which forsake
virtuous living! How many seek refuge in the opposite!
Many, no doubt;(12) nay, very many, as the last days
approach.(13) But such a comparison as this fails in
fairness of application; for all are agreed in thinking
thus of the evil-doer, so that not even the guilty
themselves, who take the wrong side, and turn away
from the pursuit of good to perverse ways, are bold
enough to defend evil as good.(14) Base things excite
their fear, impious ones their shame. In short, they
are eager for concealment, they shrink from publicity,
they tremble when caught; when accused, they deny;
even when tortured, they do not readily or invariably
confess (their crime); at all events,(15) they grieve
when they are condemned. They reproach themselves for
their past life; their change from innocence to an
evil disposition they even attribute to fate. They
cannot say that it is not a wrong thing, therefore
they will not admit it to be their own act. As for
the Christians, however, in what does their case resemble
this? No one is ashamed; no one is sorry, except for
his former (sins).(16) If he is pointed

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at (for his religion), he glories in it; if dragged
to trial, he does not resist; if accused, he makes
no defence. When questioned, he confesses; when condemned,
he rejoices. What sort of evil is this, in which the
nature of evil comes to a standstill?(1)

CHAP. II. --THE HEATHEN PERVERTED JUDGMENT IN THE TRIAL
OF CHRISTIANS. THEY WOULD BE MORE CONSISTENT IF THEY
DISPENSED WITH ALL FORM OF TRIAL. TERTULLIAN URGES
THIS WITH MUCH INDIGNATION.

In this case you actually(3) conduct trials contrary
to the usual form of judicial process against criminals;
for when culprits are brought up for trial, should
they deny the charge, you press them for a confession
by tortures. When Christians, however, confess without
compulsion, you aply the torture to induce them to
deny. What great perverseness is this, when you stand
out against confession, and change the use of the torture,
compelling the man who frankly acknowledges the charge(4)
to evade it, and him who is unwilling, to deny it?
You, who preside for the purpose of extorting truth,
demand falsehood from us alone that we may declare
ourselves not to be what we are. I suppose you do not
want us to be bad men, and therefore you earnestly
wish to exclude us from that character. To be sure,(5)
you put others on the rack and the gibbet, to get them
to deny what they have the reputation of being. Now,
when they deny (the charge against them), you do not
believe them but on our denial, you instantly believe
us. If you feel sure that we are the most injurious
of men, why, even in processes against us, are we dealt
with by you differently from other offenders? I do
not mean that you make no account of(6) either an accusation
or a denial (for your practice is not hastily to condemn
men without an indictment and a defence); but, to take
an instance in the trial of a murderer, the case is
not at once ended, or the inquiry satisfied, on a man's
confessing himself the murderer. However complete his
confession,(7) you do not readily believe him; but
over and above this, you inquire into accessory circumstances--how
often had he committed murder; with what weapons, in
what place, with what plunder, accomplices, and abettors
after the fact(8) (was the crime perpetrated)--to the
end that nothing whatever respecting the criminal might
escape detection, and that every means should be at
hand for arriving at a true verdict. In our case, on
the contrary,(9) whom you believe to be guilty of more
atrocious and numerous crimes, you frame your indictments(10)
in briefer and lighter terms. I suppose you do not
care to load with accusations men whom you earnestly
wish to get rid of, or else you do not think it necessary
to inquire into matters which are known to you already.
It is, however, all the more perverse that you compel
us to deny charges about which you have the clearest
evidence. But, indeed,(11) how much more consistent
were it with your hatred of us to dispense with all
forms of judicial process, and to strive with all your
might not to urge us to say "No," and so
have to acquit the objects of your hatred; but to confess
all and singular the crimes laid to our charge, that
your resentments might be the better glutted with an
accumulation of our punishments, when it becomes known
how many of those feasts each one of us may have celebrated,
and how many incests we may have committed under cover
of the night! What am I saying? Since your researches
for rooting out our society must needs be made on a
wide scale, you ought to extend your inquiry against
our friends and companions. Let our infanticides and
the dressers (of our horrible repasts) be brought out,--ay,
and the very dogs which minister to our (incestuous)
nuptials;(12) then the business (of our trial) would
be without a fault. Even to the crowds which throng
the spectacles a zest would be given; for with how
much greater eagerness would they resort to the theatre,
when one had to fight in the lists who had devoured
a hundred babies! For since such horrid and monstrous
crimes are reported of us, they ought, of course, to
be brought to light, lest they should seem to be incredible,
and the public detestation of us should begin to cool.
For most persons are slow to believe such things,(13)
feeling a horrible disgust at supposing that our nature
could have an appetite for the food of wild beasts,
when it has precluded these from all concubinage with
the race of man.

CHAP. III. --THE GREAT OFFENCE IN THE CHRISTIANS LIES
IN THEIR VERY NAME. THE NAME VINDICATED.

Since, therefore, you who are in other cases most
scrupulous and persevering in investigating charges
of far less serious import, relinquish your care in
cases like ours, which are so horrible, and of such
surpassing sin that impiety is too mild a word for
them, by declining to hear confession, which should
always be an important process for those who conduct
judicial proceedings; and failing to make a full inquiry,
which should be gone into by such as sue for a condemnation,
it becomes evident that the crime laid to our charge
consists not of any sinful conduct, but lies wholly
in our name. If, indeed,(2) any real crimes were clearly
adducible against us, their very names would condemn
us, if found applicable,(3) so that distinct sentences
would be pronounced against us in this wise: Let that
murderer, or that incestuous criminal, or whatever
it be that we are charged with, be led to execution,
be crucified, or be thrown to the beasts. Your sentences,
however,(4) import only that one has confessed himself
a Christian. No name of a crime stands against us,
but only the crime of a name. Now this in very deed
is neither more nor less than(5) the entire odium which
is felt against us. The name is the cause: some mysterious
force intensified by your ignorance assails it, so
that you do not wish to know for certain that which
for certain you are sure you know nothing of; and therefore,
further, you do not believe things which are not submitted
to proof, and, lest they should be easily refuted,(6)
you refuse to make inquiry, so that the odious name
is punished under the presumption of (real) crimes.
In order, therefore, that the issue may be withdrawn
from the offensive name, we are compelled to deny it;
then upon our denial we are acquitted, with an entire
absolution(7) for the past: we are no longer murderers,
no longer incestuous, because we have lost that name.(8)
But since this point is dealt with in a place of its
own,(9) do you tell us plainly why you are pursuing
this name even to extirpation? What crime, what offence,
what fault is there in a name? For you are barred by
the rule(10) which puts it out of your power to allege
crimes (of any man), which no legal action moots, no
indictment specifies, no sentence enumerates. In any
case which is submitted to the judge,(11) inquired
into against the defendant, responded to by him or
denied, and cited from the bench, I acknowledge a legal
charge. Concerning, then, the merit of a name, whatever
offence names may be charged with, whatever impeachment
words may be amenable to, I for my part(12) think,
that not even a complaint is due to a word or a name,
unless indeed it has a barbarous sound, or smacks of
ill-luck, or is immodest, or is indecorous for the
speaker, or unpleasant to the hearer. These crimes
in (mere) words and names are just like barbarous words
and phrases, which have their fault, and their solecism,
and their absurdity of figure. The name Christian,
however, so far as its meaning goes, bears the sense
of anointing. Even when by a faulty pronunciation you
call us "Chrestians" (for you are not certain
about even the sound of this noted name), you in fact
lisp out the sense of pleasantness and goodness.(13)
You are therefore vilifying(14) in harmless men even
the harmless name we bear, which is not inconvenient
for the tongue, nor harsh to the ear, nor injurious
to a single being, nor rude for our country, being
a good Greek word, as many others also are, and pleasant
in sound and sense. Surely, surely,(15) names are not
things which deserve punishment by the sword, or the
cross, or the beasts.

CHAP. IV. --THE TRUTH HATED IN THE CHRISTIANS; SO IN
MEASURE WAS IT, OF OLD, IN SOCRATES. THE VIRTUES OF
THE CHRISTIANS.

But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of
its founder. Now in the first place it is, no doubt
a fair and usual custom that a sect should be marked
out by the name of its founder, since philosophers
are called Pythagoreans and Platonists after their
masters; in the same way physicians are called after
Erasistratus, and grammarians after Aristarchus. If,
therefore, a sect has a bad character because its founder
was bad, it is punished(17) as the traditional bearer(18)
of a bad name. But this would be indulging in a rash
assumption.

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The first step was to find out what the founder was,
that his sect might be understood, instead of hindering(1)
inquiry into the founder's character from the sect.
But in our case,(2) by being necessarily ignorant of
the sect, through your ignorance of its founder, or
else by not taking a fair survey of the founder, because
you make no inquiry into his sect, you fasten merely
on the name, just as if you vilified in it both sect
and founder, whom you know nothing of whatever. And
yet you openly allow your philosophers the right of
attaching themselves to any school, and bearing its
founder's name as their own; and nobody stirs up any
hatred against them, although both in public and in
private they bark out(3) their bitterest eloquence
against your customs, rites, ceremonies, and manner
of life, with so much contempt for the laws, and so
little respect for persons, that they even flaunt their
licentious words(4) against the emperors themselves
with impunity. And yet it is the truth, which is so
troublesome to the world, that these philosophers affect,
but which Christians possess: they therefore who have
it in possession afford the greater displeasure, because
he who affects a thing plays with it; he who possesses
it maintains it. For example,(5) Socrates was condemned
on that side (of his wisdom) in which he came nearest
in his search to the truth, by destroying your gods.
Although the name of Christian was not at that time
in the world, yet truth was always suffering condemnation.
Now you will not deny that he was a wise man, to whom
your own Pythian (god) had borne witness. Socrates,
he said, was the wisest of men. Truth overbore Apollo,
and made him pronounce even against himself since he
acknowledged that he was no god, when he affirmed that
that was the wisest man who was denying the gods. However,(6)
on your principle he was the less wise because he denied
the gods, although, in truth, he was all the wiser
by reason of this denial. It is just in the same way
that you are in the habit of saying of us: "Lucius
Titius is a good man, only he is a Christian;"
while another says; "I wonder that so worthy(7)
a man as Caius Seius has become a Christian.(8) "
According to(9) the blindness of their folly men praise
what they know, (and) blame what they are ignorant
of; and that which they know, they vitiate by that
which they do not know. It occurs to none (to consider)
whether a man is not good and wise because he is a
Christian, or therefore a Christian because he is wise
and good, although it is more usual in human conduct
to determine obscurities by what is manifest, than
to prejudice what is manifest by what is obscure. Some
persons wonder that those whom they had known to be
unsteady, worthless, or wicked before they bore this(10)
name, have been suddenly converted to virtuous courses;
and yet they better know how to wonder (at the change)
than to attain to it; others are so obstinate in their
strife as to do battle with their own best interests,
which they have it in their power to secure by intercourse(11)
with that hated name. I know more than one(12) husband,
formerly anxious about their wives' conduct, and unable
to bear even mice to creep into their bed-room without
a groan of suspicion, who have, upon discovering the
cause of their new assiduity, and their unwonted attention
to the duties of home,(13) offered the entire loan
of their wives to others,(14) disclaimed all jealousy,
(and) preferred to be the husbands of she-wolves than
of Christian women: they could commit themselves to
a perverse abuse of nature, but they could not permit
their wives to be reformed for the better! A father
disinherited his son, with whom he had ceased to find
fault. A master sent his slave to bridewell,(15) whom
he had even found to be indispensable to him. As soon
as they discovered them to be Christians, they wished
they were criminals again; for our discipline carries
its own evidence in itself, nor are we betrayed by
anything else than our own goodness, just as bad men
also become conspicuous(16) by their own evil. Else
how is it that we alone are, contrary to the lessons
of nature, branded as very evil because of our good?
For what mark do we exhibit except the prime wisdom,(17)
which teaches us not to worship the frivolous works
of the human hand; the temperance, by which we abstain
from other men's goods; the chastity, which we pollute
not even with a look; the compassion, which prompts
us to help the needy; the truth itself, which makes
us give offence; and liberty, for which we have even
learned to die? Whoever wishes to understand who the
Christians are, must needs employ these marks for their
discovery.

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CHAP. V.(1)--THE INCONSISTENT LIFE OF ANY FALSE CHRISTIAN
NO MORE CONDEMNS TRUE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, THAN A PASSING
CLOUD OBSCURES A SUMMER SKY.

As to your saying of us that we are a most shameful
set, and utterly steeped in luxury, avarice, and depravity,
we will not deny that this is true of some. It is,
however, a sufficient testimonial for our name, that
this cannot be said of all, not even of the greater
part of us. It must happen even in the healthiest and
purest body, that a mole should grow, or a wart arise
on it, or freckles disfigure it. Not even the sky itself
is clear with so perfect(2) a serenity as not to be
flecked with some filmy cloud.(3) A slight spot on
the face, because it is obvious in so conspicuous a
part, only serves to show purity of the entire complexion.
The goodness of the larger portion is well attested
by the slender flaw. But although you prove that some
of our people are evil, you do not hereby prove that
they are Christians. Search and see whether there is
any sect to which (a partial shortcoming) is imputed
as a general stain.(4) You are accustomed in conversation
yourselves to say, in disparagement of us, "Why
is so-and-so deceitful, when the Christians are so
self-denying? why merciless, when they are so merciful?"
You thus bear your testimony to the fact that this
is not the character of Christians, when you ask, in
the way of a retort,(5) how men who are reputed to
be Christians can be of such and such a disposition.
There is a good deal of difference between an imputation
and a name,(6) between an opinion and the truth. For
names were appointed for the express purpose of setting
their proper limits between mere designation and actual
condition.(7) How many indeed are said to be philosophers,
who for all that do not fulfil the law of philosophy?
All bear the name in respect of their profession; but
they hold the designation without the excellence of
the profession, and they disgrace the real thing under
the shallow pretence of its name. Men are not straightway
of such and such a character, because they are said
to be so; but when they are not, it is vain to say
so of them: they only deceive people who attach reality
to a name, when it is its consistency with fact which
decides the condition implied in the name.(8) And yet
persons of this doubtful stamp do not assemble with
us, neither do they belong to our communion: by their
delinquency they become yours once more(9) since we
should be unwilling to mix even with them whom your
violence and cruelty compelled to recant. Yet we should,
of course, be more ready to have included amongst us
those who have unwillingly forsaken our discipline
than wilful apostates. However, you have no right to
call them Christians, to whom the Christians themselves
deny that name, and who have not learned to deny themselves.

CHAP. VI.(10)--THE INNOCENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS NOT COMPROMISED
BY THE INIQUITOUS LAWS WHICH WERE MADE AGAINST THEM.

Whenever these statements and answers of ours, which
truth suggests of its own accord, press and restrain
your conscience, which is the witness of its own ignorance,
you betake yourselves in hot haste to that poor altar
of refuge,(11) the authority of the laws, because these,
of course, would never punish the offensive(12) sect,
if their deserts had not been fully considered by those
who made the laws. Then what is it which has prevented
a like consideration on the part of those who put the
laws in force, when, in the case of all other crimes
which are similarly forbidden and punished by the laws,
the penalty is not inflicted(13) until it is sought
by regular process?(14) Take,(15) for instance, the
case of a murderer or an adulterer. An examination
is ordered touching the particulars(16) of the crime,
even though it is patent to all what its nature(17)
is. Whatever wrong has been done by the Christian ought
to be brought to light. No law forbids inquiry to be
made; on the contrary, inquiry is made in the interest
of the laws.(18) For how are you to keep the law by
precautions against that which the law forbids, if
you neutralize the carefulness of the precaution by
your failing to perceive(19) what it is yon have to
keep? No law must keep to itself(20) the knowledge
of its own righteousness,(21) but (it owes it) to those
from whom it claims obedience. The law, however, becomes
an object of suspicion when it declines to approve
itself. Naturally enough,(22) then, are the laws against

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the Christians supposed to be just and deserving of
respect and observance, just as long as men remain
ignorant of their aim and purport; but when this is
perceived, their extreme injustice is discovered, and
they are deservedly rejected with abhorrence,(1) along
with (their instruments of torture)--the swords, the
crosses, and the lions. An unjust law secures no respect.
In my opinion, however, there is a suspicion among
you that some of these laws are unjust, since not a
day passes without your modifying their severity and
iniquity by fresh deliberations and decisions.

CHAP. VII.(2)--THE CHRISTIANS DEFAMED. A SARCASTIC DESCRIPTION
OF FAME; ITS DECEPTION AND ATROCIOUS SLANDERS OF THE
CHRISTIANS LENGTHILY DESCRIBED.

Whence comes it to pass, you will say to us, that
such a character could have been attributed to you,
as to have justified the lawmakers perhaps by its imputation?
Let me ask on my side, what voucher they had then,
or you now, for the truth of the imputation? (You answer,)
Fame. Well, now, is not this--
"Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum?"(3)

Now, why a plague,(4) if it be always true? It never
ceases from lying; nor even at the moment when it reports
the truth is it so free from the wish to lie, as not
to interweave the false with the true, by processes
of addition, diminution, or confusion of various facts.
Indeed,(5) such is its condition, that it can only
continue to exist while it lies. For it lives only
just so long as it fails to prove anything. As soon
as it proves itself true, it falls; and, as if its
office of reporting news were at an end, it quits its
post: thenceforward the thing is held to be a fact,
and it passes under that name. No one, then, says,
to take an instance, "The report is that this
happened at Rome," or, "The rumour goes that
he has got a province;" but, "He has got
a province," and, "This happened at Rome."
Nobody mentions a rumour except at an uncertainty,
because nobody can be sure of a rumour, but only of
certain knowledge; and none but a fool believes a rumour,
because no wise man puts faith in an uncertainty. In
however wide a circuit(6) a report has been circulated,
it must needs have originated some time or other from
one mouth; afterwards it creeps on somehow to ears
and tongues which pass it on(7) and so obscures the
humble error in which it began, that no one considers
whether the mouth which first set it a-going disseminated
a falsehood,--a circumstance which often happens either
from a temper of rivalry, or a suspicious turn, or
even the pleasure of feigning news. It is, however,
well that time reveals all things, as your own sayings
and proverbs testify; yea, as nature herself attests,
which has so ordered it that nothing lies hid, not
even that which fame has not reported. See, now, what
a witness(8) you have suborned against us: it has not
been able up to this time to prove the report it set
in motion, although it has had so long a time to recommend
it to our acceptance. This name of ours took its rise
in the reign of Augustus; under Tiberius it was taught
with all clearness and publicity;(9) under Nero it
was ruthlessly condemned,(10) and you may weigh its
worth and character even from the person of its persecutor.
If that prince was a pious man, then the Christians
are impious; if he was just, if he was pure, then the
Christians are unjust and impure; if he was not a public
enemy, we are enemies of our country: what sort of
men we are, our persecutor himself shows, since he
of course punished what produced hostility to himself.(11)
Now, although every other institution which existed
under Nero has been destroyed, yet this of ours has
firmly remained--righteous, it would seem, as being
unlike the author (of its persecution). Two hundred
and fifty years, then, have not yet passed since our
life began. During the interval there have been so
many criminals; so many crosses have obtained immortality;(12)
so many infants have been slain; so many loaves steeped
in blood; so many extinctions of candles;(13) so many
dissolute marriages. And up to the present time it
is mere report which fights against the Christians.
No doubt it has a strong support in the wickedness
of the human mind, and utters its falsehoods with more
success among cruel and savage men. For the more inclined
you are to maliciousness, the more ready are you to
believe evil; in short, men more easily believe the
evil that is false, than the good which is true. Now,
if injustice has left any place within you for the
exercise of prudence in investigating the truth of
reports, justice of course demanded

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that you should examine by whom the report could have
been spread among the multitude, and thus circulated
through the world. For it could not have been by the
Christians themselves, I suppose, since by the very
constitution and law of all mysteries the obligation
of silence is imposed. How much more would this be
the case in such (mysteries as are ascribed to us),
which, if divulged, could not fail to bring down instant
punishment from the prompt resentment of men! Since,
therefore, the Christians are not their own betrayers,
it follows that it must be strangers. Now I ask, how
could strangers obtain knowledge of us, when even true
and lawful mysteries exclude every stranger from witnessing
them, unless illicit ones are less exclusive? Well,
then, it is more in keeping with the character of strangers
both to be ignorant (of the true state of a case),
and to invent (a false account). Our domestic servants
(perhaps) listened, and peeped through crevices and
holes, and stealthily got information of our ways.
What, then, shall we say when our servants betray them
to you?(1) It is better, (to be sure,)(2) for us all
not to be betrayed by any; but still, if our practices
be so atrocious, how much more proper is it when a
righteous indignation bursts asunder even all ties
of domestic fidelity? How was it possible for it to
endure what horrified the mind and affrighted the eye?
This is also a wonderful thing, both that he who was
so overcome with impatient excitement as to turn informer,(3)
did not likewise desire to prove (what he reported),
and that he who heard the informer's story did not
care to see for himself, since no doubt the reward(4)
is equal both for the informer who proves what he reports,
and for the hearer who convinces himself of the credibility(5)
of what he hears. But then you say that (this is precisely
what has taken place): first came the rumour, then
the exhibition of the proof; first the hearsay, then
the inspection; and after this, fame received its commission.
Now this, I must say,(6) surpasses all admiration,
that that was once for all detected and divulged which
is being for ever repeated, unless, forsooth, we have
by this time ceased from the reiteration of such things(7)
(as are alleged of us). But we are called still by
the same (offensive) name, and we are supposed to be
still engaged in the same practices, and we multiply
from day to day; the more(8) we are, to the more become
we objects of hatred. Hatred increases as the material
for it increases. Now, seeing that the multitude of
offenders is ever advancing, how is it that the crowd
of informers does not keep equal pace therewith? To
the best of my belief, even our manner of life(9) has
become better known; you know the very days of our
assemblies; therefore we are both besieged, and attacked,
and kept prisoners actually in our secret congregations.
Yet who ever came upon a half-consumed corpse (amongst
us)? Who has detected the traces of a bite in our blood-steeped
loaf? Who has discovered, by a sudden light invading
our darkness, any marks of impurity, I will not say
of incest, (in our feasts)? If we save ourselves. by
a bribe(10) from being dragged out before the public
gaze with such a character, how is it that we are still
oppressed? We have it indeed in our own power not to
be thus apprehended at all; for who either sells or
buys information about a crime, if the crime itself
has no existence? But why need I disparagingly refer
to(11) strange spies and informers, when you allege
against us such charges as we certainly do not ourselves
divulge with very much noise--either as soon as you
hear of them, if we previously show them to you, or
after you have yourselves discovered them, if they
are for the time concealed from you? For no doubt,(12)
when any desire initiation in the mysteries, their
custom is first to go to the master or father of the
sacred rites. Then he will say (to the applicant),
You must bring an infant, as a guarantee for our rites,
to be sacrificed, as well as some bread to be broken
and dipped in his blood; you also want candles, and
dogs tied together to upset them, and bits of meat
to rouse the dogs. Moreover, a mother too, or a sister,
is necessary for you. What, however, is to be said
if you have neither? I suppose in that case you could
not be a genuine Christian. Now, do let me ask you,
Will such things, when reported by strangers, bear
to be spread about (as charges against us)? It is impossible
for such persons to understand proceedings in which
they take no part.(13) The first step of the process
is perpetrated with artifice; our feasts and our marriages
are invented and detailed(14) by ignorant persons,

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who had never before heard about Christian mysteries.
And though they afterwards cannot help acquiring some
knowledge of them, it is even then as having to be
administered by others whom they bring on the scene.(1)
Besides, how absurd is it that the profane know mysteries
which the priest knows not! They keep them all to themselves,
then,(2) and take them for granted; and so these tragedies,
(worse than those) of Thyestes or OEdipus, do not at
all come forth to light, nor find their way(3) to the
public. Even more voracious bites take nothing away
from the credit(4) of such as are initiated, whether
servants or masters. If, however, none of these allegations
can be proved to be true, how incalculable must be
esteemed the grandeur (of that religion) which is manifestly
not overbalanced even by the burden of these vast atrocities!
O ye heathen; who have and deserve our pity,(5) behold,
we set before you the promise which our sacred system
offers. It guarantees eternal life to such as follow
and observe it; on the other hand, it threatens with
the eternal punishment of an unending fire those who
are profane and hostile; while to both classes alike
is preached a resurrection from the dead. We are not
now concerned(6) about the doctrine of these (verities),
which are discussed in their proper place.(7) Meanwhile,
however, believe them, even as we do ourselves, for
I want to know whether you are ready to reach them,
as we do, through such crimes. Come, whosoever you
are, plunge your sword into an infant; or if that is
another's office, then simply gaze at the breathing
creature(8) dying before it has lived; at any rate,
catch its fresh(9) blood in which to steep your bread;
then feed yourself without stint; and whilst this is
going on, recline. Carefully distinguish the places
where your mother or your sister may have made their
bed; mark them well, in order that, when the shades
of night have fallen upon them, putting of course to
the test the care of every one of you, you may not
make the awkward mistake of alighting on somebody else:(10)
you would have to make an atonement, if you failed
of the incest. When you have effected all this, eternal
life will be in store for you. I want you to tell me
whether you think eternal life worth such a price.
No, indeed,(11) you do not believe it: even if you
did believe it, I maintain that you would be unwilling
to give (the fee); or if willing, would be unable.
But why should others be able if you are unable? Why
should you be able if others are unable? What would
you wish impunity (and) eternity to stand you in?(12)
Do you suppose that these (blessings) can be bought
by us at any price? Have Christians teeth of a different
sort from others? Have they more ample jaws?(13) Are
they of different nerve for incestuous lust? I trow
not. It is enough for us to differ from you in condition(14)
by truth alone.

CHAP. VIII.(15)--THE CALUMNY AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS
ILLUSTRATED IN THE DISCOVERY OF PSAMMETICHUS. REFUTATION
OF THE STORY.

We are indeed said to be the "third race"
of men. What, a dog-faced race?(16) Or broadly shadow-footed?(17)
Or some subterranean(18) Antipodes? If you attach any
meaning to these names, pray tell us what are the first
and the second race, that so we may know something
of this "third." Psammetichus thought that
he had hit upon the ingenious discovery of the primeval
man. He is said to have removed certain new-born infants
from all human intercourse, and to have entrusted them
to a nurse, whom he had previously deprived of her
tongue, in order that, being completely exiled from
all sound of the human voice, they might form their
speech without hearing it; and thus, deriving it from
themselves alone, might indicate what that first nation
was whose speech was dictated by nature. Their first
utterance was BEKKOS, a word which means "bread"
in the language of Phrygia: the Phrygians, therefore,
are supposed to be the first of the human race.(19)
But it will not be out of place if we make one observation,
with a view to show how your faith abandons itself
more to vanities than to verities.

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Can it be, then, at all credible that the nurse retained
her life, after the loss of so important a member,
the very organ of the breath of life,(1)--cut out,
too, from the very root, with her throat(2) mutilated,
which cannot be wounded even on the outside without
danger, and the putrid gore flowing back to the chest,
and deprived for so long a time of her food? Come,
even suppose that by the remedies of a Philomela she
retained her life, in the way supposed by wisest persons,
who account for the dumbness not by cutting out the
tongue, but from the blush of shame; if on such a supposition
she lived, she would still be able to blurt out some
dull sound. And a shrill inarticulate noise from opening
the mouth only, without any modulation of the lips,
might be forced from the mere throat, though there
were no tongue to help. This, it is probable, the infants
readily imitated, and the more so because it was the
only sound; only they did it a little more neatly,
as they had tongues;(3) and then they attached to it
a definite signification. Granted, then, that the Phrygians
were the earliest race, it does not follow that the
Christians are the third. For how many other nations
come regularly after the Phrygians? Take care, however,
lest those whom you call the third race should obtain
the first rank, since there is no nation indeed which
is not Christian. Whatever nation, therefore, was the
first, is nevertheless Christian now.(4) It is ridiculous
folly which makes you say we are the latest race, and
then specifically call us the third. But it is in respect
of our religion.(5) not of our nation, that we are
supposed to be the third; the series being the Romans,
the Jews, and the Christians after them. Where, then,
are the Greeks? or if they are reckoned amongst the
Romans in regard to their superstition (since it was
from Greece that Rome borrowed even her gods), where
at least are the Egyptians, since these have, so far
as I know, a mysterious religion peculiar to themselves?
Now, if they who belong to the third race are so monstrous,
what must they be supposed to be who preceded them
in the first and the second place?

CHAP. IX.(6)--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT THE CAUSE OF PUBLIC
CALAMITIES: THERE WERE SUCH TROUBLES BEFORE CHRISTIANITY.

But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations?
Under the same natural form, malice and folly have
always been associated in one body and growth, and
have ever opposed us under the One instigator of error.(7)
Indeed, I feel no astonishment; and therefore, as it
is necessary for my subject, I will enumerate some
instances, that you may feel the astonishment by the
enumeration of the folly into which you fall, when
you insist on our being the causes of every public
calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its
banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the
sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion,
if death(8) has made its devastations, or famine its
afflictions, your cry immediately is, "This is
the fault(9) of the Christians!" As if they who
fear the true God could have to fear a light thing,
or at least anything else (than an earthquake or famine,
or such visitations).(10) I suppose it is as despisers
of your gods that we call down on us these strokes
of theirs. As we have remarked already,(11) three hundred
years have not yet passed in our existence; but what
vast scourges before that time fell on all the world,
on its various cities and provinces! what terrible
wars, both foreign and domestic! what pestilences,
famines, conflagrations, yawnings, and quakings of
the earth has history recorded!(12) Where were the
Christians, then, when the Roman state furnished so
many chronicles of its disasters? Where were the Christians
when the islands Hiera, Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes,
and Cea were desolated with multitudes of men? or,
again, when the land mentioned by Plato as larger than
Asia or Africa was sunk in the Atlantic Sea? or when
fire from heaven overwhelmed Volsinii, and flames from
their own mountain consumed Pompeii? when the sea of
Corinth was engulphed by an earthquake? when the whole
world was destroyed by the deluge? Where then were
(I will not say the Christians, who despise your gods,
but) your gods themselves, who are proved to be of
later origin than that great ruin by the very places
and cities in which they were born, sojourned, and
were buried, and even those which they founded? For
else they would not have remained to the present day,
unless they had been more recent than that catastrophe,
If you do not care to peruse and reflect upon these
testimonies of history, the record of which affects
you differently from us,(13) in order

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especially that you may not have to tax your gods with
extreme injustice, since they injure even their worshippers
on account of their despisers, do you not then prove
yourselves to be also in the wrong, when you hold them
to be gods, who make no distinction between the deserts
of yourselves and profane persons? If, however, as
it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the
chastisement of your gods because you are too slack
in our extirpation, you then have settled the question(1)
of their weakness and insignificance; for they would
not be angry with you for loitering over our punishment,
if they could do anything themselves,--although you
admit the same thing indeed in another way, whenever
by inflicting punishment on us you seem to be avenging
them. If one interest is maintained by another party,
that which defends is the greater of the two. What
a shame, then, must it be for gods to be defended by
a human being!

CHAP. X.(2)--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT THE ONLY CONTEMNERS
OF THE GODS. CONTEMPT OF THEM OFTEN DISPLAYED BY HEATHEN
OFFICIAL PERSONS. HOMER MADE THE GODS CONTEMPTIBLE.

Pour out now all your venom; fling against this
name of ours all your shafts of calumny: I shall stay
no longer to refute them; but they shall by and by
be blunted, when we come to explain our entire discipline.(3)
I shall content myself now indeed with plucking these
shafts out of our own body, and hurling them back on
yourselves. The same wounds which you have inflicted
on us by your charges I shall show to be imprinted
on yourselves, that you may fall by your own swords
and javelins.(4) Now, first, when you direct against
us the general charge of divorcing ourselves from the
institutions of our forefathers, consider again and
again whether you are not yourselves open to that accusation
in common with us. For when I look through your life
and customs, lo, what do I discover but the old order
of things corrupted, nay, destroyed by you? Of the
laws I have already said, that you are daily supplanting
them with novel decrees and statutes. As to everything
else in your manner of life, how great are the changes
you have made from your ancestors--in your style, your
dress, your equipage, your very food, and even in your
speech; for the old-fashioned you banish, as if it
were offensive to you! Everywhere, in your public pursuits
and private duties, antiquity is repealed; all the
authority of your forefathers your own authority has
superseded. To be sure,(5) you are for ever praising
old customs; but this is only to your greater discredit,
for you nevertheless persistently reject them. How
great must your perverseness have been, to have bestowed
approbation on your ancestors' institutions, which
were too inefficient to be lasting, all the while that
you were rejecting the very objects of your approbation!
But even that very heir-loom(6) of your forefathers,
which you seem to guard and defend with greatest fidelity,
in which you actually(7) find your strongest grounds
for impeaching us as violators of the law, and from
which your hatred of the Christian name derives all
its life--I mean the worship of the gods--I shall prove
to be undergoing ruin and contempt from yourselves
no less than(8) (from us),--unless it be that there
is no reason for our being regarded as despisers of
the gods like yourselves, on the ground that nobody
despises what he knows has absolutely no existence.
What certainly exists can be despised. That which is
nothing, suffers nothing. From those, therefore, to
whom it is an existing thing,(9) must necessarily proceed
the suffering which affects it. All the heavier, then,
is the accusation which burdens you who believe that
there are gods and (at the same time) despise them,
who worship and also reject them, who honour and also
assail them. One may also gather the same conclusion
from this consideration, above all: since you worship
various gods, some one and some another, you of course
despise those which you do not worship. A preference
for the one is not possible without slighting the other,
and no choice can be made without a rejection. He who
selects some one out of many, has already slighted
the other which he does not select. But it is impossible
that so many and so great gods can be worshipped by
all. Then you must have exercised your contempt (in
this matter) even at the beginning, since indeed you
were not then afraid of so ordering things, that all
the gods could not become objects of worship to all.
For those very wise and prudent ancestors of yours,
whose institutions you know not how to repeal, especially
in respect of your gods, are themselves found to have
been impious. I am much mistaken, if they did not sometimes
decree that no general should dedicate a temple, which
he may have vowed in battle, before the senate gave
its sanction; as in the case of Marcus AEmilius, who
had made

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a vow to the god Alburnus. Now is it not confessedly
the greatest impiety, nay, the greatest insult, to
place the honour of the Deity at the will and pleasure
of human judgment, so that there cannot be a god except
the senate permit him? Many times have the censors
destroyed(1) (a god) without consulting the people.
Father Bacchus, with all his ritual, was certainly
by the consuls, on the seate's authority, cast not
only out of the city, but out of all Italy; whilst
Varro informs us that Serapis also, and Isis, and Arpocrates,
and Anubis, were excluded from the Capitol, and that
their altars which the senate had thrown down were
only restored by the popular violence. The Consul Gabinius,
however, on the first day of the ensuing January, although
he gave a tardy consent to some sacrifices, in deference
to the crowd which assembled, because he had failed
to decide about Serapis and Isis, yet held the judgment
of the senate to be more potent than the clamour of
the multitude, and forbade the altars to be built.
Here, then, you have amongst your own forefathers,
if not the name, at all events the procedure,(2) of
the Christians, which despises the gods. If, however,
you were even innocent of the charge of treason against
them in the honour you pay them, I still find that
you have made a consistent advance in superstition
as well as impiety. For how much more irreligious are
you found to be! There are your household gods, the
Lares and the Penates, which you possess(3) by a family
consecration:(4) you even tread them profanely under
foot, you and your domestics, by hawking and pawning
them for your wants or your whims. Such insolent sacrilege
might be excusable, if it were not practised against
your humbler deities; as it is, the case is only the
more insolent. There is, however, some consolation
for your private household gods under these affronts,
that you treat your public deities with still greater
indignity and insolence. First of all, you advertise
them for auction, submit them to public sale, knock
them down to the highest bidder, when you every five
years bring them to the hammer among your revenues.
For this purpose you frequent the temple of Serapis
or the Capitol, hold your sales there,(5) conclude
your contracts,(6) as if they were markets, with the
well-known(7) voice of the crier, (and) the self-same
levy(8) of the quaestor. Now lands become cheaper when
burdened with tribute, and men by the capitation tax
diminish in value (these are the well-known marks of
slavery). But the gods, the more tribute they pay,
become more holy; or rather,(9) the more holy they
are, the more tribute do they pay. Their majesty is
converted into an article of traffic; men drive a business
with their religion; the sanctity of the gods is beggared
with sales and contracts. You make merchandise of the
ground of your temples, of the approach to your altars,
of your offerings,(10) of your sacrifices.(11) You
sell the whole divinity (of your gods). You will not
permit their gratuitous worship. The auctioneers necessitate
more repairs(12) than the priests. It was not enough
that you had insolently made a profit of your gods,
if we would test the amount of your contempt; and you
are not content to have withheld honour from them,
you must also depreciate the little you do render to
them by some indignity or other. What, indeed, do you
do by way of honouring your gods, which you do not
equally offer to your dead? You build temples for the
gods, you erect temples also to the dead; you build
altars for the gods, you build them also for the dead;
you inscribe the same superscription over both; you
sketch out the same lineaments for their statues--as
best suits their genius, or profession, or age; you
make an old man of Saturn, a beardless youth of Apollo;
you form a virgin from Diana; in Mars you consecrate
a soldier, a blacksmith in Vulcan. No wonder, therefore,
if you slay the same victims and burn the same odours
for your dead as you do for your gods. What excuse
can be found for that insolence which classes the dead
of whatever sort(13) as equal with the gods? Even to
your princes there are assigned the services of priests
and sacred ceremonies, and chariots,(14) and cars,
and the honours of the solisternia and the lectisternia,
holidays and games. Rightly enough,(15) since heaven
is open to them; still it is none the less contumelious
to the gods: in the first place, because it could not
possibly be decent that other beings should be numbered
with them, even if it has been given to them to become
divine after their birth; in the second place, because
the witness who beheld the man caught up into heaven(16)
would not forswear himself so freely and palpably before
the people, if it were not for the con-

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tempt felt about the objects sworn to both by himself
and those(1) who allow the perjury. For these feel
of themselves, that what is sworn to is nothing; and
more than that, they go so far as to fee the witness,
because he had the courage to publicly despise the
avengers of perjury. Now, as to that, who among you
is pure of the charge of perjury? By this time, indeed,
there is an end to all danger in swearing by the gods,
since the oath by Caesar carries with it more influential
scruples, which very circumstance indeed tends to the
degradation of your gods; for those who perjure themselves
when swearing by Caesar are more readily punished than
those who violate an oath to a Jupiter. But, of the
two kindred feelings of contempt and derision, contempt
is the more honourable, having a certain glory in its
arrogance; for it sometimes proceeds from confidence,
or the security of consciousness, or a natural loftiness
of mind. Derision, however, is a more wanton feeling,
and so far it points more directly(2) to a carping
insolence. Now only consider what great deriders of
your gods you show yourselves to be! I say nothing
of your indulgence of this feeling during your sacrificial
acts, how you offer for your victims the poorest and
most emaciated creatures; or else of the sound and
healthy animals only the portions which are useless
for food, such as the heads and hoofs, or the plucked
feathers and hair, and whatever at home you would have
thrown away. I pass over whatever may seem to the taste(3)
of the vulgar and profane to have constituted the religion(4)
of your forefathers; but then the most learned and
serious classes (for seriousness and wisdom to some
extent(5) profess(6) to be derived from learning) are
always, in fact, the most irreverent towards your gods;
and if their learning ever halts, it is only to make
up for the remissness by a more shameful invention
of follies and falsehoods about their gods. I will
begin with that enthusiastic fondness which you show
for him from whom every depraved writer gets his dreams,
to whom you ascribe as much honour as you derogate
from your gods, by magnifying him who has made such
sport of them. I mean Homer by this description. He
it is, in my opinion, who has treated the majesty of
the Divine Being on the low level of human condition,
imbuing the gods with the falls(7) and the passions
of men; who has pitted them against each other with
varying success, like pairs of gladiators: he wounds
Venus with an arrow from a human hand; he keeps Mars
a prisoner in chains for thirteen months, with the
prospect of perishing;(8) he parades(9) Jupiter as
suffering a like indignity from a crowd of celestial
(rebels;) or he draws from him tears for Sarpedon;
or he represents him wantoning with Juno in the most
disgraceful way, advocating his incestuous passion
for her by a description and enumeration of his various
amours. Since then, which of the poets has not, on
the authority of their great prince, calumniated the
gods, by either betraying truth or feigning falsehood?
Have the dramatists also, whether in tragedy or comedy,
refrained from making the gods the authors(10) of the
calamities and retributions (of their plays)? I say
nothing of your philosophers, whom a certain inspiration
of truth itself elevates against the gods, and secures
from all fear in their proud severity and stern discipline.
Take, for example,(11) Socrates. In contempt of your
gods, he swears by an oak, and a dog, and a goat. Now,
although he was condemned to die for this very reason,
the Athenians afterwards repented of that condemnation,
and even put to death his accusers. By this conduct
of theirs the testimony of Socrates is replaced at
its full value, and I am enabled to meet you with this
retort, that in his case you have approbation bestowed
on that which is now-a-days reprobated in us. But besides
this instance there is Diogenes, who, I know not to
what extent, made sport of Hercules; whilst Varro,
that Diogenes of the Roman cut,(12) introduces to our
view some three hundred Joves, or, as they ought to
be called, Jupiters,(13) (and all) without heads. Your
other wanton wits(14) likewise minister to your pleasures
by disgracing the gods. Examine carefully the sacrilegious(15)
beauties of your Lentuli and Hostii; now, is it the
players or your gods who become the objects of your
mirth in their tricks and jokes? Then, again, with
what pleasure do you take up the literature of the
stage, which describes all the foul conduct of the
gods! Their majesty is defiled in your presence in
some unchaste body. The mask of some deity, at your
will,(16) covers some infamous paltry head. The Sun
mourns for the death of his son by a lightning-flash
amid your rude rejoicing.

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Cybele sighs for a shepherd who disdains her, without
raising a blush on your cheek; and you quietly endure
songs which celebrate(1) the gallantries of Jove. You
are, of course, possessed of a more religious spirit
in the show of your gladiators, when your gods dance,
with equal zest, over the spilling of human blood,
(and) over those filthy penalties which are at once
their proof and plot for executing your criminals,
or else (when) your criminals are punished personating
the gods themselves.(2) We have often witnessed in
a mutilated criminal your god of Pessinum, Attis; a
wretch burnt alive has personated Hercules. We have
laughed at the sport of your mid-day game of the gods,
when Father Pluto, Jove's own brother, drags away,
hammer in hand, the remains of the gladiators; when
Mercury, with his winged cap and heated wand, tests
with his cautery whether the bodies were really lifeless,
or only feigning death. Who now can investigate every
particular of this sort although so destructive of
the honour of the Divine Being, and so humiliating
to His majesty? They all, indeed, have their origin(3)
in a contempt (of the gods), on the part both of those
who practise(4) these personations, as well as of those(5)
who are susceptible of being so represented.(6) I hardly
know, therefore, whether your gods have more reason
to complain of yourselves or of us. After despising
them on the one hand, you flatter them on the other;
if you fail in any duty towards them, you appease them
with a fee;(6) in short, you allow yourselves to act
towards them in any way you please. We, however, live
in a consistent and entire aversion to them.

CHAP. XI.(7)--THE ABSURD CAVIL OF THE ASS'S
HEAD DISPOSED OF.

In this matter we are (said to be) guilty not merely
of forsaking the religion of the community, but of
introducing a monstrous superstition; for some among
you have dreamed that our god is an ass's head,--an
absurdity which Cornelius Tacitus first suggested.
In the fourth book of his histories,(8) where he is
treating of the Jewish war, he begins his description
with the origin of that nation, and gives his own views
respecting both the origin and the name of their religion.
He relates that the Jews, in their migration in the
desert, when suffering for want of water, escaped by
following for guides some wild asses, which they supposed
to be going in quest of water after pasture, and that
on this account the image of one of these animals was
worshipped by the Jews. From this, I suppose, it was
presumed that we, too, from our close connection with
the Jewish religion, have ours consecrated under the
same emblematic form. The same Cornelius Tacitus, however,--who,
to say the truth, is most loquacious in falsehood--forgetting
his later statement, relates how Pompey the Great,
after conquering the Jews and capturing Jerusalem,
entered the temple, but found nothing in the shape
of an image, though he examined the place carefully.
Where, then, should their God have been found? Nowhere
else, of course than in so memorable a temple which
was carefully shut to all but the priests, and into
which there could be no fear of a stranger entering.
But what apology must I here offer for what I am going
to say, when I have no other object at the moment than
to make a passing remark or two in a general way which
shall be equally applicable to yourselves?(9) Suppose
that our God, then, be an asinine person, will you
at all events deny that you possess the same characteristics
with ourselves in that matter? (Not their heads only,
but) entire asses, are, to be sure, objects of adoration
to you, along with their tutelar Epona; and all herds,
and cattle, and beasts you consecrate, and their stables
into the bargain! This, perhaps, is your grievance
against us, that, when surrounded by cattle-worshippers
of every kind we are simply devoted to asses!

CHAP. XII.(10)--THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING A CROSS. THE
HEATHENS THEMSELVES MADE MUCH OF CROSSES IN SACRED
THINGS; NAY, THEIR VERY IDOLS WERE FORMED ON A CRUCIAL
FRAME.

As for him who affirms that we are "the

122

priesthood of a cross,"(1) we shall claim him(2)
as our co-religionist.(3) A cross is, in its material,
a sign of wood; amongst yourselves also the object
of worship is a wooden figure. Only, whilst with you
the figure is a human one, with us the wood is its
own figure. Never mind(4) for the present what is the
shape, provided the material is the same: the form,
too, is of no importance,(5) if so be it be the actual
body of a god. If, however, there arises a question
of difference on this point what, (let me ask,) is
the difference between the Athenian Pallas, or the
Pharian Ceres, and wood formed into a cross,(6) when
each is represented by a rough stock, without form,
and by the merest rudiment of a statue(7) of unformed
wood? Every piece of timber(8) which is fixed in the
ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and
indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire
cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam,(9)
of course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the
less to excuse you, for you dedicate to religion only
a mutilated imperfect piece of wood, while others consecrate
to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The truth,
however, after all is, that your religion is all cross,
as I shall show. You are indeed unaware that your gods
in their origin have proceeded from this hated cross.(10)
Now, every image, whether carved out of wood or stone,
or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer
material, must needs have had plastic hands engaged
in its formation. Well, then, this modeller,(11) before
he did anything else,(12) hit upon the form of a wooden
cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural
position the latent and concealed outline of a cross.
Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a
straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally,
if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched,
you will make the general outline of a cross. Starting,
then, from this rudimental form and prop,(13) as it
were, he applies a covering of clay, and so gradually
completes the limbs, and forms the body, and covers
the cross within with the shape which he meant to impress
upon the clay; then from this design, with the help
of compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready
for his image which is to be brought out into marble,
or clay, or whatever the material be of which he has
determined to make his god. (This, then, is the process:)
after the cross-shaped frame, the clay; after the clay,
the god. In a well-understood routine, the cross passes
into a god through the clayey medium. The cross then
you consecrate, and from it the consecrated (deity)
begins to derive his origin.(14) By way of example,
let us take the case of a tree which grows up into
a system of branches and foliage, and is a reproduction
of its own kind, whether it springs from the kernel
of an olive, or the stone of a peach, or a grain of
pepper which has been duly tempered under ground. Now,
if you transplant it, or take a cutting off its branches
for another plant, to what will you attribute what
is produced by the propagation? Will it not be to the
grain, or the stone, or the kernel? Because, as the
third stage is attributable to the second, and the
second in like manner to the first, so the third will
have to be referred to the first, through the second
as the mean. We need not stay any longer in the discussion
of this point, since by a natural law every kind of
produce throughout nature refers back its growth to
its original source; and just as the product is comprised
in its primal cause, so does that cause agree in character
with the thing produced. Since, then, in the production
of your gods, you worship the cross which originates
them, here will be the original kernel and grain, from
which are propagated the wooden materials of your idolatrous
images. Examples are not far to seek. Your victories
you celebrate with religious ceremony(15) as deities;
and they are the more august in proportion to the joy
they bring you. The frames on which you hang up your
trophies must be crosses: these are, as it were, the
very core of your pageants.(16) Thus, in your victories,
the religion of your camp makes even crosses objects
of worship; your standards it adores, your standards
are the sanction of its oaths; your standards it prefers
before Jupiter himself, But all that parade(17) of
images, and that display of pure gold, are (as so many)
necklaces of the crosses. in like manner also, in the
banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard with
no less sacred care, you have the streamers (and) vestments
of your crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship
unadorned and simple crosses.

123

CHAP. XIII.(1)--THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING THE SUN MET
BY A RETORT.

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it
must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god
of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact
that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday
a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than
this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of
sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise,
move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It
is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun
into the calendar of the week; and you have selected
its day,(2) in preference to the preceding day(3) as
the most suitable in the week(4) for either an entire
abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until
the evening, or for taking rest and for banqueting.
By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate
from your own religious rites to those of strangers.
For the Jewish feasts an the Sabbath and "the
Purification,"(5) and Jewish also are the ceremonies
of the lamps,(6) and the fasts of unleavened bread,
and the "littoral prayers,"(7) all which
institutions and practices are of course foreign from
your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this digression,
you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should
consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from
your Saturn and your days of rest.

CHAP. XIV.(8)--THE VILE CALUMNY ABOUT ONOCOETES RETORTED
ON THE HEATHEN BY TERTULLIAN.

Report has introduced a new calumny respecting our
God. Not so long ago, a most abandoned wretch in that
city of yours,(9) a man who had deserted indeed his
own religion--a Jew, in fact, who had only lost his
skin, flayed of course by wild beasts,(10) against
which he enters the lists for hire day after day with
a sound body, and so in a condition to lose his skin(11)--carried
about in public a caricature of us with this label:
Onocoetes.(12) This (figure) had ass's ears, and was
dressed in a toga with a book, having a hoof on one
of his feet. And the crowd believed this infamous Jew.
For what other set of men is the seed-plot(13) of all
the calumny against us? Throughout the city, therefore,
Onocoetes is all the talk. As, however, it is less
then "a nine days' wonder,"(14) and so destitute
of all authority from time, and weak enough from the
character of its author, I shall gratify myself by
using it simply in the way of a retort. Let us then
see whether you are not here also found in our company.
Now it matters not what their form may be, when our
concern is about deformed images. You have amongst
you gods with a dog's head, and a lion's head, with
the horns of a cow, and a ram, and a goat, goat-shaped
or serpent-shaped, and winged in foot, head, and back.
Why therefore brand our one God so conspicuously? Many
an Onocoetes is found amongst yourselves.

CHAP. XV.(15)--THE CHARGE OF INFANTICIDE RETORTED ON
THE HEATHEN.

Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it
follows that there is no difference between us on the
point of sacrifice, or even of worship,(16) if I may
be allowed to make good our comparison from another
sort of evidence. We begin our religious service, or
initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As
for you, since your own transactions in human blood
and infanticide have faded from your memory, you shall
be duly reminded of them in the proper place; we now
postpone most of the instances, that we may not seem
to be everywhere(17) handling the selfsame topics.
Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us
does not fail in another point of view. For if we are
infanticides in one sense, you also can hardly be deemed
such in any other sense; because, although you are
forbidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it
so happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity
or greater safety, with the deliberate knowledge of
the public, and the suffrages(18) of this entire age.(19)
Yet there is no great difference between us, only you
do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred rite,
nor (as a service) to God. But then you make away with
them in a more cruel manner,

124

because you expose them to the cold and hunger, and
to wild beasts, or else you get rid of them by the
slower death of drowning. If, however, there does occur
any dissimilarity between us in this matter,(1) you
must not overlook the fact that it is your own dear
children(2) whose life you quench; and this will supplement,
nay, abundantly aggravate, on your side of the question,
whatever is defective in us on other grounds. Well,
but we are said to sup off our impious sacrifice! Whilst
we postpone to a more suitable place(3) whatever resemblance
even to this practice is discoverable amongst yourselves,
we are not far removed from you in voracity. If in
the one case there is unchastity, and in ours cruelty,
we are still on the same footing (if I may so far admit
our guilt(4)) in nature, where cruelty is always found
in concord with unchastity. But, after all, what do
you less than we; or rather, what do you not do in
excess of us? I wonder whether it be a small matter
to you(5) to pant for human entrails, because you devour
full-grown men alive? Is it, forsooth, only a trifle
to lick up human blood, when you draw out(6) the blood
which was destined to live? Is it a light thing in
your view to feed on an infant, when you consume one
wholly before it is come to the birth?(7)

CHAP. XVI.(8)--OTHER CHARGES REPELLED BY THE SAME METHOD.
THE STORY OF THE NOBLE ROMAN YOUTH AND HIS PARENTS,

I am now come to the hour for extinguishing the
lamps, and for using the dogs, and practising the deeds
of darkness. And on this point I am afraid I must succumb
to you; for what similar accusation shall I have to
bring against you? But you should at once commend the
cleverness with which we make our incest look modest,
in that we have devised a spurious night,(9) to avoid
polluting the real light and darkness, and have even
thought it right to dispense with earthly lights, and
to play tricks also with our conscience. For whatever
we do ourselves, we suspect in others when we choose
(to be suspicious). As for your incestuous deeds, on
the contrary,(10) men enjoy them at full liberty, in
the face of day, or in the natural night, or before
high Heaven; and in proportion to their successful
issue is your own ignorance of the result, since you
publicly indulge in your incestuous intercourse in
the full cognizance of broad day-light. (No ignorance,
however, conceals our conduct from our eyes,) for in
the very darkness we are able to recognise our own
misdeeds. The Persians, you know very well,(11) according
to Ctesias, live quite promiscuously with their mothers,
in full knowledge of the fact, and without any horror;
whilst of the Macedonians it is well known that they
constantly do the same thing, and with perfect approbation:
for once, when the blinded(12) OEdipus came upon their
stage, they greeted him with laughter and derisive
cheers. The actor, taking off his mask in great alarm,
said, "Gentlemen, have I displeased you?"
"Certainly not," replied the Macedonians,
"you have played your part well enough; but either
the author was very silly, if he invented (this mutilation
as an atonement for the incest), or else OEdipus was
a great fool for his pains if he really so punished
himself;" and then they shouted out one to the
other, H<greek>lsune</greek> <greek>eis</greek>
<greek>thn</greek> <greek>mhtera</greek>.
But how insignificant, (say you,) is the stain which
one or two nations can make on the whole world! As
for us, we of course have infected the very sun, polluted
the entire ocean! Quote, then, one nation which is
free from the passions which allure the whole race
of men to incest! If there is a single nation which
knows nothing of concubinage through the necessity
of age and sex--to say nothing of lust and licentiousness--that
nation will be a stranger to incest. If any nature
can be found so peculiarly removed from the human state
as to be liable neither to ignorance, nor error, nor
misfortune, that alone may be adduced with any consistency
as an answer to the Christians. Reflect, therefore,
on the licentiousness which floats about amongst men's
passions(13) as if they were the winds, and consider
whether there be any communities which the full and
strong tides of passion fail to waft to the commission
of this great sin. In the first place, when you expose
your infants to the mercy of others, or leave them
for adoption to better parents than yourselves, do
you forget what an opportunity for incest is furnished,
how wide a scope is opened for its accidental commission?
Undoubtedly, such of you as are more serious from a
principle of self-restraint and careful reflection,
abstain from lusts which could produce results of such
a kind, in whatever place you may happen to be, at
home or abroad, so that no indiscriminate diffusion
of seed, or licentious reception thereof, will produce
chil-

125

dren to you unawares, such as their very parents, or
else other children, might encounter in inadvertent
incest, for no restraint from age is regarded in (the
importunities of) lust. All acts of adultery, all cases
of fornication, all the licentiousness of public brothels,
whether committed at home or perpetrated out of doors,(1)
serve to produce confusions of blood and complications
of natural relationship,(2) and thence to conduce to
incest; from which consummation your players and buffoons
draw the materials of their exhibitions. It was from
such a source, too, that so flagrant a tragedy recently
burst upon the public as that which the prefect Fuscianus
had judicially to decide. A boy of noble birth, who,
by the unintentional neglect of his attendants,(3)
had strolled too far from home, was decoyed by some
passers-by, and carried off. The paltry Greek(4) who
had the care of him, or somebody else,(5) in true Greek
fashion, had gone into the house and captured him.
Having been taken away into Asia, he is brought, when
arrived at full age, back to Rome, and exposed for
sale. His own father buys him unawares, and treats
him as a Greek.(6) Afterwards, as was his wont, the
youth is sent by his master into the fields, chained
as a slave.(7) Thither the tutor and the nurse had
already been banished for punishment. The whole case
is represented to them; they relate each other's misfortunes:
they, on the one hand, how they had lost their ward
when he was a boy; he, on the other hand, that he had
been lost from his boyhood. But they agreed in the
main, that he was a native of Rome of a noble family;
perhaps he further gave sure proofs of his identity.
Accordingly, as God willed it for the purpose of fastening
a stain upon that age, a presentiment about the time
excites him, the periods exactly suit his age, even
his eyes help to recall(8) his features, some peculiar
marks on his body are enumerated His master and mistress,
who are now no other than his own father and mother,
anxiously urge a protracted inquiry. The slave-dealer
is examined, the unhappy truth is all discovered. When
their wickedness becomes manifest, the parents find
a remedy for their despair by hanging themselves; to
their son, who survives the miserable calamity, their
property is awarded by the prefect, not as an inheritance,
but as the wages of infamy and incest. That one case
was a sufficient example for public exposure(9) of
the sins of this sort which are secretly perpetrated
among you. Nothing happens among men in solitary isolation.
But, as it seems to me, it is only in a solitary case
that such a charge can be drawn out against us, even
in the mysteries of our religion. You ply us evermore
with this charge;(10) yet there are like delinquencies
to be traced amongst you, even in your ordinary course
of life.(11)

CHAP. XVII.(12)--THE CHRISTIAN REFUSAL TO SWEAR BY THE
GENIUS OF CAESAR. FLIPPANCY AND IRREVERENCE RETORTED
ON THE HEATHEN.

As to your charges of obstinacy and presumption,
whatever you allege against us, even in these respects,
there are not wanting points in which you will bear
a comparison with us. Our first step in this contumacious
conduct concerns that which is ranked by you immediately
after(13) the worship due to God, that is, the worship
due to the majesty of the Caesars, in respect of which
we are charged with being irreligious towards them,
since we neither propititate their images nor swear
by their genius. We are called enemies of the people.
Well, be it so; yet at the same time (it must not be
forgotten, that) the emperors find enemies amongst
you heathen, and are constantly getting surnames to
signalize their triumphs--one becoming Parthicus,(14)
and another Medicus and Germanicus.(15) On this head(16)
the Roman people must see to it who they are amongst
whom(17) there still remain nations which are unsubdued
and foreign to their rule. But, at all events, you
are of us,(18) and yet you conspire against us. (In
reply, we need only state) a well-known fact,(19) that
we acknowledge the fealty of Romans to the emperors.
No conspiracy has ever broken out from our body: no
Caesar's blood has ever fixed a stain upon us, in the
senate or even in the palace; no assumption of the
purple has ever in any of the provinces been affected
by us. The Syrias still exhale the odours of their
corpses; still do the Gauls(20) fail to wash away (their
blood) in the waters of their Rhone. our allegations
of our insanity(21) I omit, be-

126

cause they do not compromise the Roman name. But I will
grapple with(1) the charge of sacrilegious vanity,
and remind you of(2) the irreverence of your own lower
classes, and the scandalous lampoons(3) of which the
statues are so cognizant, and the sneers which are
sometimes uttered at the public games,(4) and the curses
with which the circus resounds. If not in arms, you
are in tongue at all events always rebellious. But
I suppose it is quite another affair to refuse to swear
by the genius of Caesar? For it is fairly open to doubt
as to who are perjurers on this point, when you do
not swear honestly(5) even by your gods. Well, we do
not call the emperor God; for on this point sannam
facimus,(6) as the saying is. But the truth is, that
you who call Caesar God both mock him, by calling him
what he is not, and curse him, because he does not
want to be what you call him. For he prefers living
to being made a god.(7)

CHAP. XVIII.(8)--CHRISTIANS CHARGED WITH AN OBSTINATE
CONTEMPT OF DEATH. INSTANCES OF THE SAME ARE FOUND
AMONGST THE HEATHEN.

The rest of your charge of obstinacy against us
you sum up in this indictment, that we boldly refuse
neither your swords, nor your crosses, nor your wild
beasts, nor fire, nor tortures, such is our obduracy
and contempt of death. But (you are inconsistent in
your charges); for in former times amongst your own
ancestors all these terrors have come in men's intrepidity(9)
not only to be despised, but even to be held in great
praise. How many swords there were, and what brave
men were willing to suffer by them, it were irksome
to enumerate.(10) (If we take the torture) of the cross,
of which so many instances have occurred, exquisite
in cruelty, your own Regulus readily initiated the
suffering which up to his day was without a precedent;(11)
a queen of Egypt used wild beasts of her own (to accomplish
her death);(12) the Carthaginian woman, who in the
last extremity of her country was more courageous than
her husband Asdrubal,(13) only followed the example,
set long before by Dido herself, of going through fire
to her death. Then, again, a woman of Athens defied
the tyrant, exhausted his tortures, and at last, lest
her person and sex might succumb through weakness,
she bit off her tongue and spat out of her mouth the
only possible instrument of a confession which was
now out of her power.(14) But in your own instance
you account such deeds glorious, in ours obstinate.
Annihilate now the glory of your ancestors, in order
that you may thereby annihilate us also. Be content
from henceforth to repeal the praises of your forefathers,
in order that you may not have to accord commendation
to us for the same (sufferings). Perhaps (you will
say) the character of a more robust age may have rendered
the spirits of antiquity more enduring. Now, however,
(we enjoy) the blessing of quietness and peace; so
that the minds and dispositions of men (should be)
more tolerant even towards strangers. Well, you rejoin,
be it so: you may compare yourselves with the ancients;
we must needs pursue with hatred all that we find in
you offensive to ourselves, because it does not obtain
currency(15) among us. Answer me, then, on each particular
case by itself. I am not seeking for examples on a
uniform scale.(16) Since, forsooth, the sword through
their contempt of death produced stories of heroism
amongst your ancestors, it is not, of course,(17) from
love of life that you go to the trainers sword in hand
and offer yourselves as gladiators,(18) (nor) through
fear of death do you enrol your names in the army.(19)
Since an ordinary(20) woman makes her death famous
by wild beasts, it cannot but be of your own pure accord
that you encounter wild beasts day after day in the
midst of peaceful times. Although no longer any Regulus
among you has raised a cross as the instrument of his
own crucifixion, yet a contempt of the fire has even
now displayed itself,(21) since one of yourselves very
lately has offered for a wager(22) to go to any place
which may be fixed upon and put on the burning shirt.(23)
If a woman once defiantly danced beneath the scourge,
the same feat has been very recently performed again
by one of your own (circus-) hunters(24) as he traversed
the

127

appointed course, not to mention the famous sufferings
of the Spartans.(1)

CHAP. XIX.(2)--IF CHRISTIANS AND THE HEATHEN THUS RESEMBLE
EACH OTHER, THERE IS GREAT DIFFERENCE IN THE GROUNDS
AND NATURE OF THEIR APPARENTLY SIMILAR CONDUCT.

Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of
obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are
amenable to them in common with yourselves, it only
remains that we compare the grounds which the respective
parties have for being personally derided. All our
obstinacy, however, is with you a foregone conclusion,(3)
based on our strong convictions; for we take for granted(4)
a resurrection of the dead. Hope in this resurrection
amounts to(5) a contempt of death. Ridicule, therefore,
as much as you like the excessive stupidity of such
minds as die that they may live; but then, in order
that you may be able to laugh more merrily, and deride
us with greater boldness, you must take your sponge,
or perhaps your tongue, and wipe away those records
of yours every now and then cropping out,(6) which
assert in not dissimilar terms that souls will return
to bodies. But how much more worthy of acceptance is
our belief which maintains that they will return to
the same bodies! And how much more ridiculous is your
inherited conceit,(7) that the human spirit is to reappear
in a dog, or a mule, or a peacock! Again, we affirm
that a judgment has been ordained by God according
to the merits of every man. This you ascribe to Minos
and Rhadamanthus, while at the same time you reject
Aristides, who was a juster judge than either. By the
award of the judgment, we say that the wicked will
have to spend an eternity in endless fire, the pious
and innocent in a region of bliss. In your view likewise
an unalterable condition is ascribed to the respective
destinations of Pyriphlegethon(8) and Elysium. Now
they are not merely your composers of myth and poetry
who write songs of this strain; but your philosophers
also speak with all confidence of the return of souls
to their former state,(9) and of the twofold award(10)
of a final judgment.

CHAP. XX.--TRUTH AND REALITY PERTAIN TO CHRISTIANS ALONE.
THE HEATHEN COUNSELLED TO EXAMINE AND EMBRACE IT.

How long therefore, O most unjust heathen, will
you refuse to acknowledge us, and (what is more) to
execrate your own (worthies), since between us no distinction
has place, because we are one and the same? Since you
do not (of course) hate what you yourselves are, give
us rather your right hands in fellowship, unite your
salutations,(11) mingle your embraces, sanguinary with
the sanguinary, incestuous with the Incestuous, conspirators
with conspirators, obstinate and vain with those of
the selfsame qualities. In company with each other,
we have been traitors to the majesty of the gods; and
together do we provoke their indignation. You too have
your "third race;"(12) not indeed third in
the way of religious rite,(13) but a third race in
sex, and, made up as it is of male and female in one,
it is more fitted to men and women (for offices of
lust).(12) Well, then, do we offend you by the very
fact of our approximation and agreement? Being on a
par is apt to furnish unconsciously the materials for
rivalry. Thus "a potter envies a potter, and a
smith a smith."(14) But we must now discontinue
this imaginary confession.(15) Our conscience has returned
to the truth, and to the consistency of truth. For
all those points which you allege(16) (against us)
will be really found in ourselves alone; and we alone
can rebut them, against whom they are adduced, by getting
you to listen(17) to the other side of the question,
whence that full knowledge is learnt which both inspires
counsel and directs the judgment. Now it is in fact
your own maxim, that no one should determine a cause
without hearing both sides of it; and it is only in
our own case that you neglect (the equitable principle).
You indulge to the full(18) that fault of human nature,
that those things which you do not disallow in yourselves
you condemn in others, or you boldly charge(19) against
others those things the guilt of which(20) you retain
a lasting consciousness of(21) in yourselves. The course
of life in which you will choose to occupy yourselves
is different from ours: whilst chaste in the eyes of
others, you are

128

unchaste towards your own selves; whilst vigorous against
vice out of doors, you succumb to it at home. This
is the injustice (which we have to suffer), that, knowing
truth, we are condemned by those who know it not; free
from guilt, we are judged by those who are implicated
in it. Remove the mote, or rather the beam, out of
your own eye, that you may be able to extract the mote
from the eyes of others. Amend your own lives first,
that you may be able to punish the Christians. Only
so far as you shall have effected your own reformation,
will you refuse to inflict punishment on them--nay,
so far will you have become Christians yourselves;
and as you shall have become Christians, so far will
you have compassed your own amendment of life. Learn
what that is which you accuse in us, and you will accuse
no longer; search out what that is which you do not
accuse in yourselves, and you will become self-accusers.
From these very few and humble remarks, so far as we
have been able to open out the subject to you, you
will plainly get some insight into (your own) error,
and some discovery of our truth. Condemn that truth
if you have the heart,(1) but only after you have examined
it; and approve the error still, if you are so minded,(2)
only first explore it. But if your prescribed rule
is to love error and hate truth, why, (let me ask,)
do you not probe to a full discovery the objects both
of your love and your hatred?

Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archaeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the "historical Jesus" -- a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.

Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archaeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regretably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.

This presentation explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views.

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Who is the dreaded beast of Revelation? Now at last, a plausible candidate
for this personification of evil incarnate has
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scripture and history is likely to revolutionize your understanding of the book
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Historical footage and other graphics are used to illustrate the lecture Dr. Gentry
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surrounding this issue -- but just why it may well be one of the most significant
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Ideal for group meetings, personal Bible study -- for anyone who wants to understand
the historical context of John's famous letter "... to the seven churches
which are in Asia." (Revelation 1:4)

Just what is “Calvinism?” Does this teaching make man a deterministic robot and God the author of sin? What about free will? If the church accepts Calvinism, won’t evangelism be stifled, perhaps even extinguished? How can we balance God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility? What are the differences between historic Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism? Why did men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Edwards and a host of renowned Protestant evangelists embrace the teaching of predestination and election and deny free will theology?

This is the first video documentary that answers these and other related questions. Hosted by Eric Holmberg, this fascinating three-part, four-hour presentation is detailed enough so as to not gloss over the controversy. At the same time, it is broken up into ten “Sunday-school-sized” sections to make the rich content manageable and accessible for the average viewer.

The Forerunner Forum is the discussion group for this web site.
The purpose of the group is to engage in discussion about the
articles on-line. If you want to discuss any article or video on
this
web site, visit The Forerunner Forum.

The Real Jesus:
A Defense of the Divinity and Historicity of Christ
is now available! This is a two hour, ten minute presentation debunking the myths about Jesus propogated by liberal theologians, which seem to be repeated endlessly in the popular media. You can order the newly expanded and improved DVD version hosted by Eric Holmberg and view some video clips from "Podcast" version as well ...